The present invention is directed to a method for tracking assets. More particularly, in a network service environment it is beneficial to track assets, such as various pieces of equipment, that are installed to support the network. The present invention improves upon known asset tracking systems by providing a real-time location-based asset tracking technique.
Asset Tracking Systems (ATS) are used in many companies to keep track of their field installations and inventory. Traditionally these kinds of systems are built around a central database designed to store information about the various field components. Updating of such a known database is done through manual processes such as field visits, barcode reading, remote database update by field technicians, etc. For a large distributed system, such as a telecommunication network or a utility network (gas, electricity, water, etc.), this kind of maintenance is very labor intensive (and consequently expensive). It is also time consuming to perform such maintenance. As a consequence of this expense and time commitment, the inventory information of a network may be less frequently updated. Many business activities that rely on correct asset tracking information are not able to perform timely and accurately with such infrequently updated databases. Today, the competition in the communication industry is getting ever stronger, and the technology is changing rapidly. A more responsive, timely, asset tracking system would be advantageous to maintain a competitive edge.
Once the updated information is gathered, and accumulated, it would be beneficial if there were a more meaningful way to present this information to a user.